HC questions tribunals judging 16K land cases

Wonders how it is possible to solve them in 20 days’ time

● KOVUTTURI PAVAN Kumar, counsel for the petitioner, said it was a violation of Article 300-A. He said cases were being disposed of in a hurry.

In a case relating to special tribunals set up by the Telangana government, in which collectors and additional collectors have been instructed by the government to dispose over 16,000 revenue cases pertaining to land ownership issues within twenty days, the Telangana High Court on Thursday wondered how would it be possible to a tribunal to adjudicate on so many pending cases solved in such a short time.

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy was so curious on how it was possible for special tribunals constituted to try pending revenue cases, exercising a judicial function to adjudicate on property rights of citizens and make judgments within a fortnight when the same revenue cases have been pending before the same revenue authorities for years together.

Chief Justice Kohli, said sarcastically, “if it can be proved how these tribunals can deal with thousands of cases in such a short time, then the judiciary of India would take a leaf from the book of Telangana, in disposing of pending cases”.

The bench was dealing with a PIL filed by N. Srinivasa Rao, a practicing advocate from Bhadrachalam, as an aggrieved party to a decision of the specially-constituted tribunals, in “not allowing parties or advocates to defend” in cases pending before the tribunals.

He argued that it was a clear violation of the principle of natural justice, where every interested party had to be given a chance to put their contentions and be heard by decision makers.

Kovutturi Pavan Kumar, counsel for the petitioner, said it was a violation of Article 300A. He said cases were being disposed of in a hurry.

Special tribunals have been constituted under the Telangana Rights in Lands and Pattadar Passbooks Act, after abolishing all revenue courts. These tribunals were constituted to try around 16,000 cases, which were pending before those abolished revenues courts.

Collectors and additional collectors, as members of these tribunals, decide cases. But, reportedly, there were “instructions” to them to “dispose of the cases within twenty days”, and that no hearings could be conducted or no advocate or party be allowed to submit contentions in these cases.

When this aspect was questioned by the High Court on Thursday, and the state was asked to explain the reason for the undue haste, Advocate General B.S. Prasad sought a “little time to get instructions from the government”, on whether it had given such directions or not.

With that, the Court gave four days’ time to him and adjourned the case till March 2.

Is Antony Blinken, US President Joe Biden’s secretary of state, preparing to abandon Barack Obama’s powder-puff Asian foreign policies? It is now widely agreed that Mr Obama, under whom Mr Blinken served as deputy secretary of state, ceded to China uncontested control of the South China Sea. Mr Obama’s so-called “pivot to Asia” was all talk and no trousers. Mr Blinken, who believes diplomacy must be “supplemented by deterrence”, may be about to implement a more aggressive foreign policy in Southeast Asia and elsewhere.

In his first speech as general secretary of the Communist Party of China in 2012, Xi Jinping made his intentions clear. He stated his commitment to “accepting the baton of history and continuing to work for realising the great revival of the Chinese nation in order to let the Chinese nation stand more firmly and powerfully among all nations”. President Xi’s international adventurism, under the umbrella of his “Belt and Road Initiative”, has been most evident in his illegal military occupation of the South China Sea, but it is a global strategy for domination which can be observed in Central Asia, the Indian Ocean, the

Middle East, Europe, even the Arctic.

How did Mr Obama respond? He did nothing. He issued platitudes. He vacillated over whether the Mutual Defence Treaty with the Philippines included the disputed South China Sea. By the end of his presidency, it was too late. And weakness in the South China Sea was undoubtedly an invitation for Mr Xi to push elsewhere on Mr Obama’s open door.

There are indications that the Biden administration will seek to construct alliances in Europe and Asia to contain the Chinese and Russian threats. As a former deputy secretary of state, Mr Blinken has long been President Biden’s point man on Europe and is known to be a long-time confidant. For a “multilateralist” who speaks fluent French, getting Europe onside will be important.

British PM Boris Johnson has been floating the idea of a “D-10” group: G-7 plus India, South Korea and Australia. Having finally decided to ditch Huawei, and persuaded by China’s crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong, the UK has thrown its hat into the “Stop China” camp. D-10 is a grouping that has some logic. By comparison,

Nato is undermined by the continuing membership of Turkey, now closely aligned with China. Even France’s President Emmanuel Macron said Nato was “brain dead”. But is the D-10 a credible base for an anti-Chinese containment strategy?

A containment strategy needs real military power. Besides the UK and France, the other European nations are largely window dressing. One suspects neither Mr Biden nor Mr Blinken have the cojones to initiate armed conflict to contest China’s already established military control of the South China Sea.

If Southeast Asia is lost, what next? China has already moved on to securing control of the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean and Suez Canal trade routes. Burma is in China’s pocket. Bangladesh, with

165 million people, where in 2016 Mr Xi made the first state visit by a Chinese leader in 30 years, is being increasingly suborned by Chinese infrastructure investment and armaments. In the south, where the Bay of Bengal meets the Indian Ocean, China is entrenched. In 2018, China negotiated a 99-year lease for Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port and

15,000 adjacent acres — just off

India’s coast.

There’s the rub. For China’s Southeast Asia strategy is to contain India, which it sees as its longterm geopolitical rival. Although India lags a distant third to America and China in terms of aggregate GDP, it is also likely to overtake the US in 20 to 30 years. India already ranks fourth in the world in terms of aggregate military power.

As the world’s largest democracies, the United States and India should always be the best of friends. Yet US-Indian relations have rarely worked well. India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, rebuffed President Eisenhower; Nehru’s meeting with President Kennedy was a car crash. (Kennedy later admitted it was “the worst head of state visit I have had”.) Henry Kissinger described Indira Gandhi’s meeting with Richard Nixon as a “dialogue of the deaf”; even the normally polite Kissinger described Mrs Gandhi as “a bitch”.

Relations between American and Indian heads of government have later improved, but their substance has not. Mr Obama liked Dr Manmohan Singh but judging from his autobiography they do not seem to have discussed much more than “progressive politics”. As for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the ultranationalist Hindu head of the BJP, he is, like Donald Trump, a populist with a cult following. Mr Biden may well court Mr Modi too. Noticeably Mr Blinken, like Donald Trump, refers to Asia as “the Indo-Pacific” — a term that the Chinese government detests.

While the geopolitical interests of America and India are clearly in alignment, bringing them into a more formal arrangement may be difficult. India is proudly independent. It does things its own way, and its prickly relationship with the West remains.

While India — currently engaged in border skirmishes with China in the remote Himalayas — is fully aware of the Chinese threat, it may be difficult to lasso the country into a formal mutual defence relationship. The D-10 is one of those neat ideas that might look good in a state department or Foreign Office briefing but, given the difficulties of coopting India and Germany, can it cut the mustard in the real world?

A ‘devotee’ Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse has been inducted in Congress here, much to the chagrin of a strong section of the party.

Babulal Chaurasia who had a few years ago pledged to spread Godse’s last court statement to one lakh people was welcomed into the party by MP Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president

of and former chief minister Kamal Nath here on Wednesday.

The official Twitter handle of MP Congress on Wednesday evening broke the news of Chaurasia being admitted to Congress by sharing the picture of the event in the party HQ here.

Former PCC president of MP Arun Yadav reacted to the development with a one-liner, “Bapu hum sharminda hai’ (Bapu, we are ashamed).

He tagged

the

photograph showing Nath welcoming Chaurasia into the party in his Twitter account, while posting his comment.

Sources in the party said the decision to induct Godse’s “follower” in the party has left many senior leaders in Congress flabbergasted.

Chaurasia had quit Congress and joined Hindu Mahasabha in 2014 to contest the local civic body elections in Gwalior.

He was said to be one of the brain behind the temple built for Godse Gwalior in 2017.

He was also reportedly present at the ‘consecration’ ceremony held to install Godse’s statue in the temple.

Later, the Gwalior administration removed the idol.

Talking to reporters in Gwalior on Thursday, Chaurasia described his joining in Congress as his “homecoming”.

“I was not aware then that the idol I was worshiping was that of Godse.

in district had

I was pushed into worshiping the idol”, he said.

Hindu Mahasabha national vice-president Jaiveer Bhardwaj took a swipe at Chaurasia for disowning his devotion to Godse, saying, “He (Chaurasia) used to be present in almost all the events organised to pay respect to Godse in the last several years”.

“It shows Congress is not averse to accommodating people who espouse the nationalistic ideology of Nathuram Godse”, he added.

BJP took a jibe at Congress for inducting the Godse ‘devotee’, saying that this has exposed the grand old party’s double standard as far as sticking to its ideology is concerned.

“On one hand, Congress projects itself as the rightful inheritor of Mahatma Gandhi’s legacy, on the other the party is not hesitant a bit to embrace a staunch follower of Godse”, BJP spokesman Rajneesh Agrawal said.